De Frutos is banned by the BBC; too offensive for Christmas

The BBC has abandoned plans to screen a ballet featuring a deformed Pope who rapes nuns which it had announced as one of the highlights of its Christmas schedule. [I don’t know, it would be a highlight of a sort to be sure.]

and

…. the de Frutos sequence climaxes in what has been described as “the most graphic scenes of sex and violence seen on the dance stage”. [This seems like a bit of an exaggeration. Maybe they don’t see much modern performance.]

and

De Frutos believes his work would have met with Diaghilev’s approval. He said: “He wasn’t bothered by political correctness. Those were the glory days when people would sleep with you to get a job. And some of the best slept with Diaghilev.”

On my side, the piece was difficult to sit through. On the other hand, I felt like I was watching history being made, and now even more so. It was memorable. It was enthusiastically offensive. It was the baddicle. In some ways, it achieved what it set out to do so very well that I think it put many other merely limp works to shame.